My name is Marcus, I’m an assistant at our Borough Market shop and work privately as a chef. I can be found most Fridays & Saturdays babbling about cheese and giving away many of my favourite recipes.

The summertime and Spain pretty much mean only one thing for me, that’s Gazpacho. That garlic laced tomato soup has confounded many a Northern …

July is the fishing season for Bonito white tuna, and Brindisa and a team of intrepid chefs joined Conservas Ortiz on their fishing boats to see how it´s done. Ortiz Bonito (Thunnus alalunga)  is all fished by rod and line, one by one.

I woke up and ran to the window hoping for bright blue skies but it wasn’t to be - it …

When someone mentions Spanish rice to us, the first thought that comes to our mind is Paella.

However, during the recent Supper Club held at Casa Brindisa in South Kensington we discovered a wide diversity of Spanish rice dishes. Leonardo Rivera, head chef of Casa Brindisa, introduced our special menu …

Can you guess where Brindisa and guests are in this photograph? 

Clue: it is a typical Basque gastronomical institution, to be found all over this region.

Note the nautical devices on the wall which are another clue to the geographical location, San Sebastián on the north coast, next to France.

This beautiful film was made on a visit to Quesos Payoyo in the Sierra de Villaluenga. 

A transcription of the film follows below.

Hello, my name is Carlos Ríos, cheese maker of the Quesos Payoyo dairy located in Villaluenga del Rosario, Cádiz, Spain.

Payoyo is a semi-cured goats’ milk cheese made with whole Payoya goat milk from S…

The Soho Food Feast took place in the heart of Soho on Saturday, bringing together a host of West End bars, clubs and restaurants in the churchyard garden of St Anne’s on Wardour St.

Teams of local chefs, all participating with mouth-watering offerings, were rallied by Margot Henderson (of Arnold & Henderson) to raise money for Soho Parish Schoo…

We are now well and truly into early summer and this is the perfect time to be eating lovely fresh new season goats’ cheese from the north of Spain. Spain is renowned for its sheeps’ milk cheeses like Manchego but not a lot of people know that Spain also has a wonderful selection of artisanal goats’ cheeses too.

There has been a big growth in small dairy chees…

Caring for your cheese is easy once you understand that unlike slabs of factory-produced cheese, true artisan cheeses vary day to day. The key is to store the cheese at the right temperature and right humidity so that your cheese develops delicious, mature, intense flavours rather than going too far and tasting off. Cheeses generally store well when kept at 10 - 14 degrees but legislation state…

Adventurous cook looking for fishy gold-dust? Try Mojama -  a wind-dried tuna to cast a touch of magic over a bowl of creamy white beans. How about smoked anchovies the colour of cherry-wood, with the toothsome bite of perfectly cooked fettucine? Tinned Bonito tuna, caught by rod and line, in big hunky, muscled chunks that will banish forever the memory of canteen salad n…

Come and try a glass of my favourite new wine at Casa Brindisa. It pairs particularly well with the Prawns al Ajillo; the Bacalao  and apple gratin with honey Alioli and pine nuts; the Ibérico pork fillet with sautéed cabbage and Chimichurri; and the Seared scallops with crispy ham and artichoke purée; all on the menu at Cas…

Once you have eaten your ham, here are some mouth-watering ideas for using the off-cuts like tacos and fat:

How to make a simple stock using an Ibérico or Serrano bone

Fill a large pot with water, and place a piece of ham bone in it with several carrots, leek and onion, perhaps some fennel and bay leaves or o…

After the brilliant cheese club in March, we were really looking forward to the popular Ham Supper Club at Casa Brindisa in South Kensington. It’s always a pleasure to enjoy an evening of Spanish ham and Spanish wines.

The evening started with an interesting talk from Rudi von Vollmar on the art of curing hams and a tasting menu of Ibérico and Serrano hams from different ha…

Myself and a team of chefs from Brindisa tapas restaurants visited the Forum Gastronomic in Girona earlier this year.

For chefs and food industry professionals, this is a "forum" for the exchange of ideas. There are a whirlwind of activities to see and participate in, from workshops; cooking demonstrations; debates between cooks, producers, scientists and analysts; to tut…

The Easter holidays in Spain are when everybody comes over with their familiy to celebrate "La Muerte y Resurreción de Cristo". To make this occasion even more special, why not cook up a delicious menu using Spanish ham; Jamón Serrano or Jamón Ibérico.

I am a new member of the ham carving team at Borough Market where we sell four different kinds of h…

Semana Santa, or Holy Week, is a great event in Spain, celebrated equally if not more than Christmas. Starting this year on April 15^th with Viernes de Dolores and ending on April 24^th with Domingo de la Resurrección, this is an impressive religious festival which is perhaps celebrated most famously in Andalucía, with places like Sev…

We recently made a visit to the Ojos del Guadiana Manchego co-operative, in the old town of Daimiel in La Mancha, where one of our artisan Manchegos is made. Although "ojos" generally means "eyes" in Spanish, here the word refers to the source of the Guadiana river. We met the "Ojos del Guadiana Sociedad Cooperativa" dairy team, led by Luciano, the lovely Ros…

Spring is the time when goats’ milk is in abundance once again so our March Cheese Club at Tierra Brindisa in Soho was dedicated to goats’ cheeses.   The evening started with an array of delicious "montaditos", followed by an individual tasting cheese plate from the mountains of Andalucía, Ávila and Catalunya, a real gastronomic journey!

 James R…

There’s a TV programme on at the moment that pits YOU against US, GOOD versus EVIL, RIGHT fighting WRONG. But let me tell you - it doesn’t have to be that way! Take a chill pill, Mary Portas - WE LOVE CUSTOMERS!

Without you lot, we’d be both broke and bored. What a great job we have. Paid-nay- encouraged - to chat! When there’s a mound of …

Know your Saffron

You may have seen recent press coverage questioning the integrity of Spanish saffron. A good article in The Independent alerts us to the fraudulent practice of mixing saffron stamens with other dyed parts of the crocus flower and the consequent intervention by the UK Food Standards Authority to test this "food fraud".  Saffron is the stigmas of the croc…

Our Ballobar wild capers have beautiful pinky purple and white tones and a lovely fresh flavour which is earthy and citrus-like. They are preserved in brine, not vinegar, so their flavour really shines through. Brindisa visited the mountains of Huesca, Aragón, to help harvest the new season batches ourselves! Only 3kg of capers can be harvested from each plant per year, in contrast to 6-…

In search of Caspe olives

On 16^th September we visited Calanda in Aragón, to see the incredibly short harvest of our Caspe olives, which lasts only 2 weeks. Traditionally the harvest would start after the feast of El Pilar at the end of September, but now due to climate change and a greater appreciation of this variety as a table olive, the harvest takes place a coup…

We are cooking with a plethora of winter vegetables over the next months: parsnips, celery, red cabbage, Jerusalem artichokes, spinach, watercress, squashes, pumpkins and peppers, to make sides as well as vegetarian dishes, from tortillas to soups. Our autumn menus will also make a feast of mushrooms, from chanterelles, ceps and girolles to the ominous-sounding and black-coloured "trompetas&nbs…

Christmas is now just around the corner! For the Borough Shop team, that means we need to start preparing ourselves for the hoards of people visiting the shop in search of delicious Christmas goodies, including thick slices of sweet, nutty soft Turrón, fruit marzipan, chocolate bars and of course our range of hampers.

The ham station is also one of the shop’s main events, w…

On arrival at Madrid there was the usual faffing around whilst we tried to find out what had happened with our car booking but having sorted this out we started on our journey – all rather too cosy as there were five of us in a rather small vehicle – but to be fair to car designers five food loving people should perhaps not be asked to get into one car.

Once again it appeare…

We visited Salvador at the Mas D’Eroles dairy, starting on the farm which has 110 cows and from which he gets 500 litres of milk daily to produce beauties such as the Ermesenda, Castellot or Gebrat raw milk cheeses.

Mas d’Eroles is really a one-man band. Salvador works alone (with the only help of Judit) with simple equipment and an actual cellar with an ingenious natural ai…

We tasted cheeses from two artisan dairies, Tros de Sort and Mas D’Eroles. Both are based in the Pyrenees of Catalunya and both specialise in raw cows’ milk cheeses.

Our menu started with a viaje, or guided tour, through six cheeses, with accompanying red and white wines and anecdotes about the dairies and their founders.

The tapas menu included some light and delici…